U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., asked the U.S. Department of Justice's watchdog Friday to look into whether the agency's apparent antitrust investigation into four carmakers that recently struck a deal on emissions standards with the state of California is an attempt to coerce the companies to quit that deal.

A bellwether trial for vehicle owners who opted out of a $10 billion settlement in multidistrict litigation over Volkswagen’s “clean diesel” emissions scandal will be held in February 2020 followed by another of an alleged co-conspirator, auto-parts supplier Robert Bosch GmbH, a California federal judge said Friday.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s pledge to honor its power purchase agreements as it moves through Chapter 11 may ease the minds of the utility's contracted electricity suppliers, but it won't douse the simmering legal fight over whether bankruptcy courts or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission get to determine the fate of such contracts.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has moved forward on a plan for oil and gas development in Alaska, clearing a hurdle that was condemned by environmentalists and Native groups and praised by oil groups and Republican politicians.

A group of insurance companies with claims against Pacific Gas and Electric for payouts they made to victims of California's 2017 and 2018 wildfires announced Friday that it has agreed to settle with the bankrupt utility for $11 billion.

WilmerHale’s Bonnie Heiple successfully guided Vermont through the thorny, yearslong process of shutting down a nuclear power plant and helped Vail Resorts navigate the environmental implications of buying a host of ski resorts across the country, making her one of five environmental attorneys under 40 selected for Law360’s Rising Stars.

The D.C. Circuit on Friday said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should have imposed ozone emission reduction deadlines on states whose pollution makes it harder for states that lie downwind to comply with limits imposed by the Clean Air Act.

The French finance minister on Friday urged his European counterparts to show citizens that politicians can act on a key issue by making progress on carbon taxation and further stressed the importance of adopting qualified majority voting for tax changes.

Energy officials from California, Massachusetts and New York on Friday said the Trump administration has stifled progress in the renewable energy sector, but touted their own programs as models for other states and cities that want to move in that direction.

Individual plaintiffs from New Mexico who have waited years to bring their damages claims against polluters in multidistrict litigation over Colorado's Gold King Mine spill may get their shot at a trial in August 2021, according to a recommendation filed Wednesday.

The U.S. government urged a California federal court not to free Tetra Tech from its lawsuit over falsified soil samples, arguing that the company improperly used an internal investigation to discredit its false claims allegations.

A coalition of environmental groups has told an Arizona federal court that the U.S. Forest Service failed to sufficiently analyze the cost of a uranium mining project it approved near the Grand Canyon, saying certain key expenses were not considered when the agency found the project would be profitable.

Nearly half the 40 cannabidiol companies surveyed by the nonprofit Center for Food Safety received failing or near-failing grades for contaminant testing and labeling, a finding that the watchdog group says underscores the lax oversight of the rapidly growing industry.

The parents of a 13-year-old girl with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and an 87-year-old woman urged a California judge Thursday to expedite trials over their separate claims that Monsanto's popular Roundup weedkiller caused their cancers, with the girl's parents asking for a Jan. 15 trial date.

The Eleventh Circuit said Thursday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not have to withdraw from a partnership with Alabama that allows the state to issue permits under the Clean Water Act even though environmental groups said Alabama’s program has sometimes strayed from federal law.

The European Union's energy tax framework hasn't kept pace with modern climate initiatives, in part because the rules don't contain an updated carbon element and give considerable flexibility to member states, according to a report released Thursday.

Over the past year, Vinson & Elkins LLP's Margaret Peloso has led a team helping Citigroup draft a climate disclosure report, defended a coal plant in a $1 billion property damage lawsuit and helped turn back proposed financial assurance regulations for the hardrock mining industry, earning her a spot as one of five environmental law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban oil drilling off vast sections of the nation's coasts and in an environmentally sensitive part of Alaska, passing a trio of bills Wednesday and Thursday in a swipe at President Donald Trump's push to expand fossil fuel production.

A New Mexico city on Wednesday urged a federal judge to dump the bulk of a lawsuit accusing its utility of imposing unlawful and discriminatory monthly fees on rooftop solar owners, saying most of the challengers don't have standing to pursue claims that the utility is violating the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.

The Trump administration on Thursday officially rolled back the Obama administration's effort to clarify federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, a move that will eliminate a regulatory patchwork and trigger vigorous litigation.

A Louisiana federal court should deny a Florida attorney's motion for a judge to recuse himself from sprawling multidistrict litigation over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the alleged conflicts are minimal at best, irrelevant to present matters and have since been mitigated, a Louisiana lawyer has argued.

Two environmental groups pushed back on developers' bid to dismiss the groups' suit over a resort project's alleged threat to endangered California condors, saying the suit was filed on time and that they have standing to pursue their claims.

As the Trump administration moves to limit states' ability to review and potentially block interstate gas pipelines, the Third Circuit gave states a powerful backup option to veto projects in a ruling that pipeline developers can't seize state-owned land via eminent domain.

Environmental groups have challenged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to give a Clean Water Act permit to a planned open-pit copper sulfide mine and plant in Minnesota, arguing efforts to protect wetlands were improperly changed at the last minute.

Expert Analysis

Three recent federal tax cases show how the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Kisor v. Wilkie, substantially restricting agency deference, is affecting interpretation of the many regulations and guidance issued post-tax reform, say Andrew Roberson and Kevin Spencer at McDermott.

The California Supreme Court's recent decision in Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor establishes that the notice-prejudice rule may protect California policyholders even if a contractual choice-of-law provision selects less favorable law, but such protection is not guaranteed, especially in the case of third-party policies, say Nathan Anderson and Tyler Gerking of Farella Braun.

National Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite, in which a Virginia utility faces possibly having to dismantle a previously approved transmission line due to drawn-out litigation, points to the need for time limits on court review of infrastructure projects, say Alan Seltzer and John Povilaitis of Buchanan Ingersoll.

In the absence of a federal rule governing deposition location, federal courts are frequently called on to resolve objections to out-of-state deposition notices. Recent decisions reveal what information is crucial to courts in making the determination, says Kevin O’Brien at Porter Wright.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 57 and its state counterparts provide a method for expediting claims for declaratory judgment that warrants closer attention than it has historically received from litigants and courts, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

By laying the appropriate groundwork, defendants can increase their likelihood of successfully challenging multidistrict litigation master complaints in early motion practice, and significantly affect the course of the litigation, says Jessica Wilson of DLA Piper.

A number of bills recently introduced in Congress seek to expand market penetration of renewable energy resources. This will mean significant changes to regulatory structures and the operation of wholesale electricity markets, and will require forward planning by all industry participants, say George Cannon and Andrew Phillips of Akin Gump.

The Business Roundtable's new corporate governance philosophy may seem like a novel paradigm asking companies to serve stakeholders at the expense of their shareholders, but successful companies thrive and earn long-term returns for their shareholders precisely because of these stakeholder investments, says Alex Dimitrief, former general counsel of GE.

My conservative, Catholic parents never skipped a beat when accepting that I was gay, and encouraged me to follow my dreams wherever they might lead. But I did not expect they would lead to the law, until I met an inspiring college professor, says James Holmes of Clyde & Co.

Experienced discovery counsel helps the virtual law team shape case strategy and provides necessary advocacy, consistency and efficiency, plus cost savings, from the beginning of a case through trial, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins and FaegreBD.

The Wayback Machine, which archives screenshots of websites at particular points in time, can be an invaluable tool in litigation, but attorneys need to follow a few simple steps early in the discovery process to increase the odds of being able to use materials obtained from the archive, says Timothy Freeman of Tanenbaum Keale.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is to be commended for his recently announced plan to install electric vehicle charging stations along the state's turnpike — but bolder plans are needed to achieve a full transition to EVs, and public-private partnerships will be key to delivering them, says Robert Alfert of Nelson Mullins.

The Judicial Conference Advisory Committee’s proposed addition to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7.1 needs to be amended slightly to prevent late-stage jurisdictional confusion in cases where the parties do not have attributed citizenship, says GianCarlo Canaparo at The Heritage Foundation.

We take your privacy seriously. As detailed in our Privacy Policy we will use your personal information to administer your account and provide the products and services that you have requested from us.